


The Storm

by Ashling



Category: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magical Realism, Apocalypse, F/F, F/M, Family, Last words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-22 11:50:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17059256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashling/pseuds/Ashling
Summary: Kitty was a speed queen, so it took them less than an hour to drive from Portland to the end of the world.





	The Storm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [silveronthetree](https://archiveofourown.org/users/silveronthetree/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, silveronthetree! As requested, a story with Lara Jean & Peter that doesn't sideline Lara Jean's two sisters. Hope you enjoy the apocalyptic feels.

Of course.

Even in her wildest ramblings, hiking through Scotland after graduation with heather purpling her braids and the many miles blistering, then callusing her feet, on what all her friends called a wild goose chase and what her own doctoral advisor had called “a slim chance at best”, Margot Song-Covey found a way to bring more responsibility on her shoulders than any one woman should have to deal with. She also found a way to deal with it.

“She’s Margot,” Lara Jean said. After five hours’ worth of arguing amongst the three Song-Covey sisters, with Kitty the stubborn holdout, this was the last argument Lara Jean made. It was the only argument she had. It was a good one.

She didn’t mean that Margot was Margot, the woman with her own specific DNA; she meant that Margot was Margot, the role, their older sister, the occupier of a specific spot in their family hierarchy. Margot was Margot the way that Dad was Dad, or Professor Silva was a professor, or the Pope was the Pope. It was an occupation, sort of. It was a calling, more like. It was, first and foremost, something that held both love and authority. Just now, Lara Jean was leaning pretty hard on the authority part.

Margot, for her part, looked a little uncomfortable; Lara Jean knew that while Margot knew very well what position she held in their family, and didn’t lack for confidence, Margot would have preferred to win the argument by wit, not by pulling rank.

But she was Margot. That much was inarguable.

“We’re all gonna die,” said Kitty, and that much was inarguable, too.

The three sisters looked at each other over the kitchen table. Margot had flown straight there from Scotland, doing calculations on her laptop all the while, and every minute of it was visible in the wrinkles of her purple cardigan, the bags under her eyes. Kitty had skipped the last volleyball game of her entire college career to make this meeting, and with those blue and yellow kneepads, those two low braids, she looked like she might still run out and make the last few minutes of the game. Only Lara Jean was dressed for the occasion, because army boots, in her opinion, never went out of style.

“Well,” Kitty said after a moment, “I better drive.”

  
  


Kitty was a speed queen, so it took them less than an hour to drive from Portland to the end of the world.

Granted, the end of the world was much closer to Portland than it had been a few months ago, when it first came up out of the ocean. The running theory was that it had come up from the cracks in the earth’s plates, bubbling up from between the Juan de Fuca and the North American. Kitty had done a class presentation on it only a few weeks ago, and she said that it was the best theory out there, so Lara Jean counted herself convinced.

While the _where_ of it was pretty obvious; the _why_ of it was wholly inscrutable; the _what_ was right in-between.

It looked exactly like it did in Youtube videos, with storm clouds they could see from miles away, and in those clouds, below those clouds, glimmers of light winking in and out of existence.

At the sight of them, Lara Jean felt a wave of nausea. She knew she shouldn’t have watched those videos, but at the time, they’d seemed a world away from her. The end of the world, or the Storm, as they called it, had stabilized a month back and it had never gotten closer to Portland than Tillamook State Forest, never moved faster than ten miles an hour, so she’d never seriously considered herself disappearing into one of those bubbles. Though she had more than once had nightmares about it after watching a particularly terrifying livestream cut short by that faintly rainbow-colored glimmer of light that was the mark of a bubble.

Bubbles came and went. People disappeared into them and didn’t come back. These were things she knew, but until she’d seen it for herself, Lara Jean had somehow never really believed it was something that could happen to her.

She kicked the back of the seat in front of her.

“You’re sure we can’t just give your research to the government and let them sort it out?” she said.

“Completely sure,” Margot said. “They’re not gonna listen to me. Not fast enough.”

So far, Lara Jean had been in college for three years, and only taken one lab class, ever. It was the Science of Baking, and she had chosen it for a reason. So if Margot said they had to drive into the middle of a mysterious storm to activate an ancient extraterrestrial artifact she’d found in the Scottish Highlands, saving all of the Pacific Northwest, potentially all of the world, from being swallowed up at any moment, then that’s exactly how things were. (For the record, Margot had thirteen graphs, several of them not even bar graphs, a few of them mean-looking things with wavelike stuff overlaid on a map of the Pacific Coast. So that helped.)

Lara Jean hadn’t argued a bit, just went to go pack some sandwiches, cookies, and juice like it was any other roadtrip. Now she wished she’d made a few more preparations.

“I feel like I should have written a will,” she said.

“You’re a student,” Kitty said. “What would you leave behind, your debt?”

“And who would you leave it to?” added Margot.

  
  
  


Kitty parked well away from the storm, a couple miles back from the protective fence the Army had hastily set up along the storm’s massive perimeter.

“Alright, everyone. Have something to eat and then we’ll go,” said Margot. “There’s no sense in trying to dodge bubbles on low blood sugar. I’m gonna call Dad.”

“What are you going to tell him?” said Lara Jean.

“The truth. Seems a little inconsistent to start lying to him now, on top of everything else.”

“That’s fair,” Lara Jean said, because she couldn’t think of anything better to say. In truth it was a very unfair thing to do, since they’d left him behind due to his bad knee, but what was the alternative?

Margot nodded, and wandered a little ways up the sandy side of the road. Lara Jean turned to Kitty, but Kitty had her phone out too, and was walking away into the forest, presumably to have her own talk alone.

Which left Lara Jean alone with more sandwiches than she knew what to do with.

She ate half a sandwich of havarti and ham, then an oatmeal chocolate chip cookie. Then another oatmeal chocolate chip cookie.

Neither Margot nor Kitty showed any sign of coming back just then, so she gave in and picked up her own phone.

“You have reached the voicemail of _Peter Kavinsky_. Please leave a message after the beep.”

“Hey, Peter. Um. Sorry, I know it’s been a while, I just…” Lara Jean cleared her throat. “There’s a lot going on right now. Margot needs my help and it’s pretty serious. And I’m probably overreacting, but, um, I just wanted to say. I’m sorry. Everything that happened, that was real, and I’m not trying to say it was nothing, but I—I’m sorry. I’m sorry things ended the way they did. I’m still who I am, and you still who you are, so that means...you're one of the best, kindest people I've ever known, and whatever else happens, that was true. Okay? Is true.” She dragged in a deep breath. “Anyways, you’ll probably wake up tomorrow morning and hear this and freak out and everything will probably be fine. So.” She saw Margot coming back through the trees. “Alright, bye.”

Her phone beeped. Her heart pounded. She avoided Margot’s eyes and drank half a water bottle to avoid talking.

When Kitty got back, they made for a dead serious-looking trio.

“Who’d you call?” said Lara Jean.

“Jess.” Kitty looked defensive. “I had to give her the Student Budget Committee login. And stuff.”

“Did you tell her?” Margot said quietly.

“Tell her what?”

Lara Jean made a vague gesture with one hand, eyes a little wider than usual. “That you…”

“No,” snapped Kitty. “Did you tell Peter?”

Lara Jean’s shoulders hunched up. “No.”

“Well, I gave Dad all our love, and that’s what counts,” Margot said firmly.

The western wind picked up, and with that, Margot slung her backpack over her shoulder. “Time to go,” she said. “Are you ready?”

“Yes,” said Kitty.

Lara Jean paused, but not out of hesitation. She simply savored it, for a moment. At the end of the world, at least, the Song-Covey sisters had each other. It was not nothing.

“Yes,” she said.


End file.
